Postcrossing Blog

218 years ago today, the great Rowland Hill was born! If his name does not ring a bell, read on – we have tales of postal corruption and innovation to share with you today!

Once upon a time, the British postal system was… a mess. Expensive, complex and widely corrupt, it was seen as wasteful and inadequate for the needs of a growing industrial nation. For instance, did you know that correspondence at the time was paid by the recipient and it depended on the distance travelled and number of paper sheets it contained? As a result, people often cross-wrote letters to save space or encoded messages on the cover of the letter – which could be analyzed and then discarded without payment. A significant percentage of letter-writers would also abuse the system by sending their correspondence under the personal frank of members of the parliament (who could send them without paying).

Rowland Hill, a teacher from Worcestershire, studied the state of the postal service for several years, before producing a pamphlet called “Post Office Reform; its Importance and Practicability”, in early 1837. In in, Hill called for “low and uniform rates” according to weight, rather than distance:

“The postage on all letters received in a post-town, and delivered in the same, or any other post-town in the British Isles, shall be at the uniform rate of one penny per half ounce”.

He also showed that most of the costs incurred in mail delivery were not for transport but rather handling at the origins and destinations – and these could be greatly reduced if pre-payment of postage by the sender was implemented. In order to achieve this, Rowland Hill proposed official pre-printed lettersheets and adhesive stamps – a piece of paper “covered at the back with a glutinous wash”.

The plan was met with resistance from the part of Royal Mail, but also with plenty of support from traders, merchants and bankers, fed up with the high costs and the corruption of the system in place. With a lot of pressure from these groups, Rowland Hill was appointed to the Treasury, in order to put his plan into operation: the Postal Reform was born!

A design competition was held to figure out how to implement the prepaid postage, and after a few false starts, the Penny Black made its debut in May 1840. It featured an engraving of a very young Queen Victoria, based on a commemorative medal sculpted by William Wyon.

The success of Rowland Hill’s reforms were mixed. One one hand, the financial cost of the Uniform Penny Post was disastrous and it would take over 30 years for Royal Mail to reach once more the revenue levels they had before 1840. On the other hand, postal traffic was greatly increased, since the lower cost made postal communications more affordable and accessible to the masses – paving the way to the development of many sectors of the economy.

Rowland Hill was knighted in 1860 for his many services to the United Kingdom. His legacy lives on in the form of the modern postal service.

Notice something different? Postcrossing has donned its winter theme and is ready for the holidays! This is the season for generosity, and this year we’re really excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Deutsche Post to make your postcards be part of a good cause. Here’s the deal:

So that’s it, really simple! If you’re in Germany, all you have to do is keep sending postcards! If your December postcards are registered before the end of February 2014, you’ll be contributing to this cause.

And though only postcards sent from Germany count, there’s always a receiver in every postcard exchange – so each time a card from Germany is registered, the recipient will be indirectly contributing to this donation as well!

To make things even more interesting, there will also be some nice prizes for the participants:

• 50 bus tickets for the new Postbus service, valid on any trip on their network.
• 20 custom-designed stamp sheets, each including 15 international postage stamps with Postcrossing’s logo;

The winners will be picked up by Paulo's random number generator in early March 2014, when we will also announce the value raised by the German postcrossers to Stiftung Lesen here in the blog.

Stiftung Lesen is a German non-profit organization, working to increase literacy – especially among children and adolescents. They promote reading through several different activities, such as the “My first letter” contest.

So… what are you waiting for? If you are in Germany, grab a pen and your stack of postcards and stamps, and start writing! The more cards you send, the more you’ll contribute to this cause – and the more chances you’ll have of winning a prize! :)

PS – As always, we respect your private information and will not share it with any company without your express permission. The full details of this campaign can be read here (German only).

After Marichie & Annuc1s’ story, a few of you wrote back to us with amazing Postcrossing stories of your own. Today we let Telenn and Amit (who you might remember from his Spotlight interview) take central stage, to tell you the story of how a simple postcard sparked a wonderful transcontinental friendship!

Telenn recalls:

“It was in August 2012 that I got to send my first official postcard to India. The profile I got belonged to Amit (drakrana). It is the sort of profile you hope for every time clicking “get address”: positive, sunny, inviting, kind, lots of innocent wishes – so picking just the perfect card is not that difficult. As we share the same passion for photography, I sent a self-clicked postcard, showing the windmill near where I was living.

Amit registered my card with a wonderful message in which he described how amazing the card was and the words were full of friendly curiosity about another part of the world.

We added each other on Facebook soon thereafter, and that was the start of a great friendship! We started with our photography interests and shifted to all sort of things. Since The Netherlands and India are such different countries culturally and geographically, we had lots to talk about! We swapped a few more cards, skyped, shared photos of local activities, and exchanged views on cultural differences and life stories about family, friends, daily life…

I even gained an interest in India and its culture and I started a collection of not only postcards but also small statuettes, magnets, keychains and other items. By then, even family, friends and colleagues became involved, receiving gifts from the other side of the world.

I experienced quite a rough time the last few months of 2012 (I got a burnout and things only seemed to get worse at the time) and Amit, a doctor by profession, was always there to give life a positive twist, some cheering talk and telling me all will be well and how to cope up with mental stress in such a time. I’m not there yet but I picked up at least a little of that positive attitude and things are heading in the right direction now."

Amit continues this heart touching story by saying:

“The friendship reached its next level when in June 2013 I planned a month long trip to Europe. I had never travelled out of India and was a bit reluctant before, but I was so much interested in Europe and its culture and with knowing Telenn, I had a basic idea that it wouldn’t be too difficult for me to acclimatise to a new place. I wanted to see it all by myself and not with a tour agent, I wanted to get a feel of life in Europe and not just be a tourist. Telenn helped me plan this trip – France, The Netherlands, Belgium and Italy were all part of the itinerary and a small meetup with great Postcrossing friends of mine in Amsterdam was also included."

About the trip, Telenn continues:

“On June 1, Amit and I met for the first time near the majestic Eiffel Tower. We were a bit apprehensive, as online and offline things are so different… but it was actually a very smooth transition! We were instantly good friends in real life too. We both were accompanied by friends who got along great as well, and everybody around us saw the true power of Postcrossing. And so we had a splendid time at Palais de Versailles, Sacré-Couer and Disneyland (Amit’ s childhood dream, where we finally dragged him into the scary gigantic roller-coasters…). The holiday home was soon a place of cards, stamps, pens and address books, sharing the adventures with our friends worldwide, who were in our minds all the time.

Amit shares:

"Next stop was The Netherlands. Telenn invited me over at her place and from there we toured the country, trying local specialities like warm stroopwafels at the market… and even India-flavoured ice-cream, why not! We drove around, getting to know the places I had previously seen in Telenn’s photographs.

As Bruges is not far away, we wandered around through the beautiful UNESCO city center, visiting Choco Story (Chocolate museum), trying the Belgian chocolates, buying some more cards… and chocolate-tasting stamps of course! I was so interested and amazed to see Indians everywhere and people showing interest in Indian food in every city we went to. We had to try and taste!

We also visited the Dutch fairytale theme park De Efteling and had a nice day in Amsterdam after that, meeting with the beautiful and friendly Sonja and her family from Germany. We had an amazing time together and more cards were written and smiles spread."

Telenn continues:

"The highlight of the stay in The Netherlands had to be the moment where we walked up the dike in Vlissingen, and the Oranje Molen – the one mill standing closest to the sea in The Netherlands loomed upon us. The mill that started our close friendship in form of a postcard! I saw the child in Amit when he reached there galloping ahead of us pointing to friends who came with him 'Hey that’s THE MILL! That’s THE MILL which managed to pull me to Europe!' Such moments can’t be described but lived.

Next stop was Italy! We exchanged the sunny weather in The Netherlands for even sunnier weather in Rome. Amit had asked for help from his good Postcrossing friend Elena who works in the tourism area. She helped us find a great place to stay and even shared some of her “to-do’s” in the city. So many friends from Postcrossing were involved in his plans that Amit refers to this trip as 'Euro 2013 hosted by Postcrossing’! :)

We discovered the most known historical places, the Colosseum, Forum Romanum, had a stroll to the Pantheon, Piazza Navona and of course the Trevi fountain, where Amit tossed in a coin praying for his next trip! :)

We went to the Vatican, where Amit jokingly said he wanted to meet the Pope and not just see him in the balcony… that true-hearted wish got granted as the Pope was out on a packed Saint Peter’s Square for his general audience! Guess who had the broadest smile in those thousands present there…

Rome was like walking in History in our life. Amit absolutely loved it and I was proud of the cultural heritage of Europe.

It was so hard to say good-bye in the end, after two weeks of seeing amazing places, buying and sending lots and lots of postcards, trying Indian food and local specialties, so many photographs and meeting friends and family of both sides and strengthening the special bond we all call friendship. As we get along so well, it was hard to say farewell. But all good times come with a break. We both hope more such fun trips will follow, visiting more common friends!

I am already saving up… I’m heading to India and I am already looking forward to seeing Amit again and meeting other Indian Postcrossing friends."

Amit concludes this journey:

“Postcrossing isn’t just a website, it’s a beautiful world within this world where a big family lives, meets, smiles, discusses and has lots of fun together… I call It a FREMILY (family of friends)! So have you made your fremily yet? Grab that pen, find that card… rush… it’s time to send some happiness to your friends across the world before the mail man collects mail… sending smiles from India and Netherlands… happy Postcrossing!”

What about you? Do you have your own Postcrossing story? Do share, we’d love to hear it!

Last week, stampraider emailed us with a couple of tips about some postcard-themed Kickstarter projects. We’re big fans of Kickstarter (and postcards, obviously), so we thought we should share these two projects with you!

First up, Wise Words – Inspiration through design by Michael, Josh & Jordan, a trio of graphic design and business students from Toronto, Canada. They’ve put together a neat collection of 40 postcards, with quotes from some of the biggest thinkers, inventors and builders of all time. Here’s their video:

Cool, right? From Nicola Tesla to Coco Chanel, the collection seems inspiring and versatile… just the thing for postcrossers, we’d say! :)

The second project, also from Toronto, is The Mo Project by The Letterpress Shoppe. They’re making postcards (also coasters, prints and stationery) featuring a number of moustaches to celebrate Movember. We do have a soft spot for letterpress, and these seem quite high quality!

So there you go! Have you heard of any interesting projects involving postcards? Do share!

Come meet annet10 (aka Anne) from Finland. She loves postcards so much that she has a fantastic postcard and stationery shop in Jyväskylä – you can see some photos here, it’s like postcard-wonderland! :) Here is what she had to say:

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I heard about Postcrossing from another member and friend of mine Marjatta9. One day, she came over to show me the lovely cards that she had received through Postcrossing and I got curious about this unique hobby.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies?

Handcrafts have always been a passion of mine – including making handmade postcards. I own the Harjun Paperi postcardstore since 1996. Originally this store was opened 1954 and since that it has been at the same location. For a postcard-lover, it was a dream come true to become the owner of this store! You can check it out at www.harjunpaperi.fi.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

I send my postcards mainly from Jyväskylä´s main postoffice and I ask the cancelation stamp to be pressed on the card by hand – not by machine.

This picture shows the typical Finnish yellow mailbox. We also have blue mailbox for 1st class mail, but the yellow one is equally effective.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

I like colorful cards that tell story about where member is from and part of their culture and country. Beautiful stamps always make me happy, they complete the card. Here are some lovely examples.

Have you inspired anyone else to join Postcrossing or start collections of their own?

People who come to my store often get to see the newspaper interview about Postcrossing given by dollart. I have made also leaflets to spread the word about Postcrossing and I love to chat and show my received cards to my customers. Postcrossing meetups in Jyväskylä are often held at the store. Also my co-worker AiriK started doing Postcrossing as her grandson collects stamps and has received lots of lovely cards and stamps.

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

All phases are nice. But it is always nice to receive new address and finding the perfect card for receiver. And of course nice cards in my mailbox always make my day!

Have you met any other members in real life?

At Harjun Paperi, I often meet Postcrossing members looking cards to other members and I have taken part of many Postcrossing meetups as well organising some of them.